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bees, honey, and the whole hive!

Bees, Work, Honey

You surely know what honey is, but do you actually know how it’s made? Honey is the sweet and sticky fluid produced by honey bees from the nectar of flowers. Worker bees transform the floral nectar that they gather into pure raw honey by adding enzymes to the nectar and reducing the moisture. They do a lot of work to create the sweet and delicious honey we all love.

Bees also manufacture edible honeycomb in the beehive and this is often consumed as a treat or as the sweet addition to a charcuterie board. Within the beehive the honey is stored in wax cells (the honeycomb) in the hive and once the bees have filled each cell in the comb with honey, the bees cover them each cell with wax caps. At harvest time, the beekeeper extracts the honey from the comb and separates the wax from the honey and may also sell the wax for many products.to make our delicious local honey products.

We also use the wax for our natural beeswax products such as candles. Beeswax is also used in a variety of processes like making lip balms and other body care items. It is also used in crafts like sewing, quilting, and leather making, or for other things like preparing dutch ovens storage, and pool table refacing.

Bees are social insects and function well together with a well defined division of labor. In a single hive, there is one queen, around 500–1000 drones, and anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 worker bees. The queen can lay up to 3,000 eggs per day during the two years of her life. The majority of the beehive is made up of worker bees who are female bees and do not reproduce.

Another important function of the bee is the pollination of the blossoms and flowers. As the bees search for nectar, they transfer pollen from one flower to the next. Without bees, there would not be many agricultural crops that we rely on such as fruit, nuts, vegetables.

The (Natural) Honey Factory

Honey is a tasty substance that is used to sweeten all kinds of foods and drinks, but how does it become so naturally sweet? Pure honey is primarily composed of fructose, glucose and water. It also contains other sugars as well as trace enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and amino acids.

Bees are some of the most efficient manufacturers in the world. They do a lot of work and are very organized, using pheromones to communicate with one another. One bee makes about one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its entire life. In order to make just one pound of honey, bees travel around 55,000 miles, gathering pollen and nectar from over two million flowers.

The color and flavor of honey vary depending on the specific floral source (the blossoms). At Cox Honeyland, we offer three varieties of local, pure honey: Clover-Alfalfa (light and mild), Cache Valley (darker with more flavor), and Mountain Snowberry (mountain wildflower flavor). Our clover honey is what we call an “average table-honey flavor” and is light and mild in flavor. The Cache Valley honey is made from a blend of local floral sources and is slightly darker in color and stronger in flavor than Clover. Our Mountain honey is gathered from higher elevations in our local mountains and has hints of wildflower flavors.

Now that you know a little more about the natural honey-making process, head over to our Shop [link to https://coxhoney.myshopify.com/collections] page to explore the different kinds of pure honey products we offer!